I think this article would work better if it were written entirely like textbook traditional investigative journalism. And less like the modern TV opinion personality, or the random strong-opinion Web comments in which many of the rest of us (including myself) indulge.
I was strongly motivated to upvote and share this article. I probably upvote and share 1/500 articles I read on this website. So I disagree, I think his tone helps convey how the bulk of people feel about Google's search product and gives us a name to actually blame. Whereas every other blog writes about the decline of Google with a sad tone underwritten with nostalgia and always fails to provide any sort of root cause or solution, atleast this guy has given us good information and context to understand Googles decline. And of course, it's more entertaining when people are called out.
Understanding the dynamics is great, and we can learn from that, and apply it to other situations.
As for who to blame for something a company does, shouldn't outsiders blame the entire company? That's our interface, and also how we can hold the company accountable for its collective behavior.
It's also a defense against scapegoating: it wasn't just one person who made a unilateral decision, and everyone else -- up to and including the board, as well as down the tree, to those who knew and could walk and/or whistleblow -- was totally powerless. The company as an entity is responsible, and a lot of individuals were key or complicit.
Yes, 100 percent. These dipwads pay themselves 100x salaries. The only way to defend that is that they take 100x responsibility for screwing things up. I would say differently if it was just a rank-and-file IC but this individual has enriched himself greatly. He can endure a little bit of scrutiny for that.
I had the unfortunate experience of running a startup with a couple of guys from a name brand fintech. They absolutely demolished the company before we got our first sale.
I couldn’t quite work out if these guys learned their mendacious trade from $bigcorp or if $bigcorps simply attract these kind of people.
My sense is that it’s a bit from both columns - I think that huge, profit driven megacorps, in general, are bad for society, in part because corporate culture itself is rapacious, and in part because they deliver enormous power into the hands of incredibly selfish people.
It implies that getting rid of That Fucking Guy is a necessary but likely insufficient condition for improving things.
Orgs that have been dysfunctional for a long time tend to have very complex dysfunctions, but there are still ways to fix these orgs, and it often starts by removing poor leadership from their posts.
Does it immediately make everything sunshine and lollipops? Of course not, but removing leadership that's actively working to counter your goals is still a necessary step towards the greater goal.
I think there are often two camps when it comes to organizational dynamics: "Team Incentives" (everything is about org structure and incentives) vs. "Team Great Person" (everything is about a small set of specific high-level people)
The reality is often somewhere in between. IMO "Team Incentives" often errs too much in that belief - especially because dysfunctional incentives are often downstream from a surprisingly small number of people.
In terms of understanding the dynamic though, That Fucking Guy doesn't really help. At best it can be emblematic of the underlying dysfunction, but in reality, with complex organizational dynamics, it's the underlying forces that empower That Fucking Guy that are important to understand, because the whole problem is that their function in the organization are an inevitable consequence of the dysfunction, and with proper function the organization would be able to harness their skills productively.
Err, I'll walk it back a little. Corporate decisions are just people's decisions, and though it's probably not just Raghavan, it was _somebody_'s decision to have Google spam our homepages.
Maybe we just need to be better at navigating who _somebody_ is, organizations can only be so complex at the top.
It's nice to think that with the right leadership, companies will behave differently. "Organizations can only be so complex at the top" implies that only the dynamic at the top of the company drives its behaviour. It's simple, and it helps to justify tremendous compensation. It's just not true. PR came into Google with a relatively modest role. He only became elevated to a more significant role because of the dynamics of how the company functions, and you'd have to think him a fool for his decisions to not be informed by those dynamics. Sure, he came out on top and his choices were his own, but it's foolish to think that if someone else had come out on top, their choices would really be all that different. The organizational dysfunction ensured that whomever was in that role would make those choices.
Yeah I agree.
The personal tone makes it clear that this is the authors’ opinion and not unbiased fact.
I thoroughly enjoyed the article and the writing style.
Excellent job.
Hyperbole that is quite obviously hyperbole is a well accepted literary device. It is a form of highlight via creative exaggeration of non-critical points, that is transparent, not deceptive, in service of making serious adjacent points. [0]
The point here is to highlight the actually cartoonish level of dysfunction and damage with an intentionally cartoonish flourish.
The "villian" in this case can be colorfully interpreted as the real world isomorphism of a mustache stroking, side sneering perpetrator, from any usually fictional world-stakes good vs. evil story.
Intentional exaggeration also communicates a bit of self-awareness, that gives heavy crisis alarms more credibility. The author's levity demonstrates a higher level awareness and humility, by making fun of his own extraordinarily serious thesis.
Finally: gallows humor. Add humor when talking about depressing things to relieve the anxiety that often inhibits discussion and contemplation of difficult topics.
Hyperbole is well and good in fiction and personal opinion pieces. I suppose my, and parent commenter's issue, is that we expected a certain type of writing, but got another. And that's fine. I don't have a dog in this fight, but to me it went beyond hyperbole and into personal attack territory. I called it juvenile because the descriptors lack nuance in the same way that "management bad, programmer good" arguments do. Having spent quite a bit of time on both sides, it's pretty clear that motivations, incentives, and constraints are not black and white, so I'm a bit more sensitive when I see people mocked without having full context.
This is a good point. This 3700 word article titled “The Man Who Killed Google Search” about Prabhakar Raghavan does not contain context for why the author would dislike Prabhakar Raghavan or speak ill of him professionally.
That makes sense. It is possible that Google search got better and not worse since it was taken over by the guy that used to run Yahoo search, in which case context would thoroughly vindicate the choice to promote SEO spam sites and make ads and search results nearly indistinguishable.
This is like that scene in the Simpsons where Lisa tries to teach Homer that correlation does not equal causation by telling him that a rock keeps bears away, and he responds by wanting to buy the rock.
Correlation isn't causation. Don't just buy that someone is fully to blame because someone told you they were fully to blame.
What part of the article would you refute aside from generally disagreeing with the idea that a manager can be considered responsible for what they’re in charge of? I’m not sure “management possesses an indelible philosophical unknowability” was Lisa’s point
Zitron spends paragraphs trying to convince the reader that Google Search sucks now mostly because of the efforts of one person.
I don't understand the correlation isn't causation argument in this context. If no one ever tried to convince others of their thesis, with numerous arguments, what's the point of writing?
Robert’s thesis is that there are smart people (like Lisa and himself) that agree that outcomes — no matter how specific or documented — should never be used to criticize managers, and hopelessly stupid people (like Homer) that do not take that position by default.
He could have said “perhaps there is a disconnection here” but rather opted to volunteer that he is in fact Very Smart and others are Very Dumb. With a position like that any writing that’s meant to convince the reader is pointless as there exists only ontological truths (things that he already agrees with) and pointless ramblings of cartoon buffoons (things that he does not already agree with)
> Robert’s thesis is that there are smart people (like Lisa and himself) that agree that outcomes — no matter how specific or documented — should never be used to criticize managers, and hopelessly stupid people (like Homer) that do not take that position by default.
None of the statements in this is the case, other than that there are smart people.
> it went beyond hyperbole and into personal attack territory.
> the descriptors lack nuance
> motivations, incentives, and constraints are not black and white
Hyperbole isn't a knife. Any more than a political cartoonist's brush. It is satire. Biting humor.
The more ridiculous the caricature, the less you are supposed to take the details literally.
The "culprit" is a lightening rod. Taking the heat for what is obviously the result of a lot of people's seemingly poor or unfortunate judgements. Google search was a thing of beauty. Now it is an ugly swamp I have personally stopped trying to wade through.
Obviously I don't have it. The author doesn't either and he is the one making the big claims. Regardless, I'm not arguing the extent to which Prabhakar Raghavan contributed to Google Search quality, I haven't even heard the name before this post. I'm not a fan of the writing style, that is all.
This makes sense. If you personally don’t like someone’s writing style it means that they do not have the factual basis to back up their claims even if they provide them. The exonerating context exists because the meanness online cannot be both correct and not to your stylistic preference
It's not at all obvious that the author intends to sound hyperbolic. At the risk of Poe's Law here, they come across as saying exactly what they intend to say, perhaps attempting to appeal to an audience looking for such portrayals.
Pinning everything on one manager, no matter how related and relevant, is obviously hyperbolic.
A lot of people, and whover they report to, right to the top, are responsible too.
But the fact remains, that this manager is (according to the essay) strongly associated with major product misfires. At best, they didn’t manage to influence decisions down better paths.
And the enshittification of Google is so obvious, so bad for customers and what has become a utility for the Internet in general, that identifying and shaming those responsible seems like useful customer-citizen feedback to me.
People need to push back as the quality of the online environment matters.
No respect for the value extractors who keep showing up to ride on the coattails of the value makers! (Even when they are the same people.)
The gentleman being called out, or another representative, is welcome to clarify why Google Search is really better than it presents. Or why they are not responsible for its precipitous quality drop - I.e. insurmountable constraints and challenges or whatever their view is. Although those kinds of excuses are not very credible when ad revenue over optimization is the obvious problem.
Thank you for this. I found this article compelling not only because of the subject matter but because of how it was written. It's possible for something to be informative and entertaining at the same time - I think this article is both. I enjoy the flourishes and creativity.
You don’t find it to be succinct? It’s certainly pejorative, but in four words it explains quite nicely how the author feels about Raghaven in a way most engineers can probably relate to. If he’d said “engineer who no longer builds but leverages their past technical background to instead succeed in a management role, often to the detriment of their past engineering peers” it would roughly get the same idea across, it’s just a chore to read.
Personally I don’t mind that sort of colloquial flare, it reads like I’m talking with a real person rather than a design document.
Read some marx. There is a whole analysis and theory behind class traitorship, it's causes and effects. You can't be ignorant of something as fundamental as marxian theory in this context, and then act as if it's the author making the faux pas...
"Anyone who talks about class traitors, or almost any sort of traitor, outside of a real war, is deeply misguided on this point."
This is where you appear to imply you're ignorant of class traitorship. If you truly knew what it was - which you claim elsewhere to know - then you would know it doesn't require a war. Class traitors are non-capitalists who collaborate with capitalists against workers. They can do that during peace.
Now forgive me if the following explanation is unnecessary:
When someone uses a term in a misguided way we can say they made a faux pas. When you claim the author is misguided for talking about class traitors outside of war, you're implying they have made a faux pas.
But the author is making no mistake. Class traitors exist in peace time as well, as I mentioned.
So if you know what a class traitor is, then admit the author is not misguided. If you can't make that admission, you have misunderstood the nature of class traitorship.
I agree with the theory in the sense that I agree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice if you had a genie that grants you wishes?"
I disagree with I think every implementation and its death toll, and with the general idea that we should be forming groups to violently gang up on other groups. Whether it's national socialism killing the citizens of other countries and taking their stuff to give to the government to apportion, or regular communism killing the citizens of other classes (classes defined by the communists) and taking their stuff to give to the government to apportion. Centralised economic control can easily get bad in small organisations, but at least the blast radius is limited. When it's in the hands of the government, who also have all the other powers, it never seems to work out well.
Your concern about the long form or simplistic style of AI text is valid, but I feel that it was warranted here. The conflation between marxian theory and failed communist states requires some subtlety to unpack, and without AI help, I would struggle to find the effort to do it justice. The text is intentionally a little simpler and expanded to make it easy to read.
As it stands, the text is comprehensive, truthful, informative, and attacks the issue at hand in a fair way.
I am happy with it.
I propose AI walls of text are bad form when they contain hallucinations and bad arguments, and are needlessly long and bungling. I hear your criticism that it was too verbose, but again, I feel that was necessary.
I propose that it's good enough.
Good day and good luck scaling artificial walls of text.
I thought it was a very good description. The person mentioned is responsible for turning one of the most important pieces of software used by billions, into user-hostile experiences that's better for only a few, including himself, just for profits.
As context, I offer the engineer oath used by some countries for certified engineers:
>> I am an Engineer. In my profession, I take deep pride. To it, I owe solemn obligations.
>> As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and dignity of my profession. I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth.
>> As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the public good. In the performance of duty, and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give my utmost.
on example i see, "When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the public good"
who decides they're needed? me, or some other form of authority? "shall be given"... as in no compensation just forced to work? "the public good", what does that even mean? like software for homeless shelters or national defense? Does designing AI for targeting enemies for bombing count as public good? In many eyes it does and in many eyes it does not.
Because it's too vacuous and based on subjective morals to be realistically followed. I also think we need engineers who do jobs that are ugly to preserve our freedom.
I don't see why subjective morals cannot be realistically followed. Do you mean that it will mean sufficiently different things for different people that they any promise of this shape will not communicate much to strangers, or something else?
Might be more realistic than imposed dogma, you never know.
>I also think we need engineers who do jobs that are ugly to preserve our freedom.
I think so too.
If you build something that can be used for evil purposes, some people along the line are going to have to judge how to build it, or whether or not to build it at all.
This seems like it would always require some moral judgment of some kind.
An engineer who plays an important technical role should not be removed from this type responsibility.
For instance, consider making weapons, some of which might be used offensively, others only defensively.
Some engineers would have no moral qualms against either type, others who are more selective, and others not willing at all. But regardless, coexistence is assured if it is accepted from the outset as an engineering goal.
These are really quite "different things for different people", triggering a different degree of uneasiness as different lines are crossed. All based on a moral foundation, incidentally whose goalposts can be moved whether anyone wants them to or not.
All could be valid depending on the situation, but a creed for the profession can help to better focus outcome, away from the direction of making things worse for humanity because of your efforts.
Experience has shown you really don't want people in key positions without a moral compass to guide their aspirations, and engineering can be important.
yes, it communicates nothing. As mentioned by another commenter, it's effectively aspirational ethics, and I do not work towards aspirations, I work towards reality.
I'm sure it does prevent some harm that would otherwise happen. There are certainly people in the world who would think twice about breaking an oath they've made, regardless of whether or not you think it's goofy.
And I think that is really part of the problem. The idea that something like this is "goofy" just makes me feel profoundly sad. Do people just not care about integrity anymore, to the point that asking someone to declare their intent to do their work with honesty is considered silly and pointless?
Perhaps the people who think it's goofy may have actually put some thought behind their statements and have good reasons? For example, I find the oath as written to be effectively impossible to implement- it's very lofty sounding, but depends greatly on the nature of "honesty":
"I shall participate in none but honest enterprises"
Who defines honesty in this context? What if two engineers disagree in their interpretation and come to different conclusions? The statements in this are so vague as to simply not be implementable in any sort of self-consistent way. Signing a vacuous unimplementable statement isn't integrity, it's mindless follower behavior.
Many of us act with integrity without signing oaths of loyalty.
"Honest enterprises" also falls into the trap of anthropomorphizing organizations. Companies are not people and cannot be honest/dishonest, moral/immoral, etc. Companies are made up of people who choose to take certain positions and actions. The oath sounds nice, but ultimately is empty.
Wait so because different people have different concepts of honesty you reject the concept of honesty wholesale?
Like surely you have some concept of honesty that you strive for... Unless you're like a sociopath?
I'm not saying it would be wrong to be a sociopath or to genuinely have no concept of an honest enterprise. I'm just trying to understand if you are truly amoral here, and that's why you can't formulate the statement in a way that makes sense to you, or if you're belaboring the point in protest because you need the statements to be more precise. I suspect it's the second one - you're just not aware of the common components of what an ethical enterprise is.
If you need a principal to be more precise, the usual way is to define sub principles that make up the principle. These principles in turn would tend to be defined in terms of other principles but let's assume that just one level of recursion gives us more meat to really judge the meaning of honest Enterprise. Then we might adopt principles like this:
Defining an "honest enterprise" in a way that is precise and actionable could incorporate several key principles. Here I have asked GPT4 to provide them, since it's excellent good at these kinds of ethical elaborations. I also happen to agree with the principles that it came up with.
Honest Enterprise is commonly taken to mean:
1. *Legal Compliance*: An honest enterprise complies with all applicable laws, regulations, and standards. This is a baseline requirement, reflecting a commitment to operate within the legal frameworks that govern its activities.
2. *Ethical Integrity*: Beyond legal compliance, an honest enterprise adheres to ethical standards. This includes transparency in operations, fairness in dealings with customers, suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders, and integrity in financial reporting and corporate governance.
3. *Social Responsibility*: The enterprise actively contributes to the welfare of the community and environment. This includes practicing sustainability, engaging in community development, and avoiding actions that harm the public or the environment, even if such actions are technically legal.
4. *Accountability*: An honest enterprise holds itself accountable to its stakeholders by being open to scrutiny and responsive to feedback. It should have mechanisms for addressing grievances and correcting misconduct.
5. *Commitment to Truth*: The enterprise should commit to honesty in its communications, advertising, and all forms of public interaction. This includes not engaging in deceptive practices or misrepresentations.
6. *Employee Respect*: Treating employees with respect, providing fair compensation, ensuring workplace safety, and supporting their professional development are signs of an honest enterprise.
7. *Innovation and Fair Competition*: The enterprise should engage in fair competition practices, respecting intellectual property rights, and avoiding practices that unfairly eliminate competition.
By strongmanning these principles into the definition of an honest enterprise we gain an ethical principle that is much harder to dispute or disagree with. Someone encompassing all these principles will tend to naturally have credibility and ethos.
It's not about the fact that the principles are arbitrary and vary from person to person. It's about the fact that you have taken great pains to collect a set of sub principles that are powerful and effective.
Oaths may come from a Time when such principles would have been more or less normalized through society. But we still have the power, by reflecting upon and studying the component principles of honest Enterprise, to adopt a strong and effective principle here. When you see a vague ethical principle, just take it to the strongest and the most effective version that you can reasonably compile. I think that's all that can really be expected of someone, ethically.
For your benefit the following text was handwritten:
All the words you saw previously were written with my permission and vetted by me. I took pains to make sure that every ethical concept was good. And I told you that I was using AI. I encourage you to read the principles and benefit from them.
But if that's not good enough for you, I invite you to go kick rocks. It's your choice and your life.
Personally I judge writing on its own merits, or I am making the genetic fallacy.
If I cannot critically analyze text regardless of source, I will lose opportunities to learn and benefit from knowledge. We are entering a time where both good and bad text will be written by AI. We will need to be able to know the difference.
I was part of one of these oaths, I have an iron ring (Canada). It's just, look around you. Every bridge collapse, every oil spill had some "certified oathkeeper" or a team of them behind it.
The presence of a ceremony - no matter how important it was in the past - just doesn't hold value anymore. I doubt that Professional Engineers(TM) that have signed the oath are among us operating on a higher plane of morality and gravitas. They're, most likely, by Occam's razor, just another person.
The idea that any amount of my peers (or myself) present at the same ceremony take this oath seriously is laughable. It's a wine and cheese event before you get your degree, nothing more.
well let's be honest, Google was never founded to dig wells or feed starving children. It was only ever for the profits.
Also, in their defense, afaik no one's paychecks have ever bounced. I bet many many people would become very interested in profit and its growth if their direct deposit all of a sudden stopped.
I'm talking about the difference between making money off a good product, and being on a quest to enrich yourself at all costs, even if it's detrimental to virtually everyone on the planet, and the company in the long term.
Hey since it's all for profits let's invent the version of Google where the computer has a robotic arm that puts a gun to your head and makes you watch ads for crypto currency arbitrage bot scams. If you don't click through it blows your brains out.
It's all for profit everything should be allowed for profit. Even really f*** awful products that hurt people and shouldn't exist... should be allowed for profit right? That's the line you're seemingly arguing.
Thanks for the link. I also took the term as clearly being used to describe the dynamic between managers and the engineers / coding "class" within a company. At Google, those lines are admittedly probably a lot blurrier, but I think the term gets the author's point across in this context.
Like, if we can't allow some level of incisive criticism of extremely well paid tech executives, who have a massive influence on technology, in an article/blog describing feasible harm by said people to said industry, on the "talk about technology news" website, I honestly don't know what the point of forums, blogging, or the internet even is.
It's a ridiculous term that promotes polarization and dumbs down the level of discourse. I have the same reaction to it as when I see "bootlicker" as applied to anyone who takes the company's side (or is in management in general). There's too much adversarial name-calling these days, and not enough seeking understanding.
It only "promotes polarization" if you have already decided that anyone who uses it "dumbs down the level of discourse." If you instead give them the benefit of the doubt that they're trying to make an intelligent point about a situation or dynamic, and then try to understand that point, and then reason about that point's validity, then you will finally find yourself actually engaging in the "level of discourse" that you purport to (but are actually undermining with your kneejerk disdain).
If you also take a wage, then you're also a class traitor by any reasonable definition, because denying the existence of class struggle only benefits capitalists - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_conflict
Thanks for helping me make my point. How's it up there in the socialist ivory tower? See, I grew up in Soviet Union and seen socialism's effects first-hand. It thoroughly disabused me of the notion of the holy class struggle and made me an unabashed capitalist (though I imagine our definitions of what this implies will differ).
Capital is Other People's Money (OPM) and capitalism is crafted so that's what rules.
Comparatively, socialism is other people's labor. That may be all you can do if there are not many other resources.
Free Enterprise is something completely different altogether.
For the Soviet natives I've known who have come to the US, it has often turned out to be the Free Enterprise which was the most promising thing they found which was not in their previous environment.
It seems like you might be abstracting and dumbing down the meaning of the term.
There was a sense in which the author uses that term as an abstract and meaningless insult. But there's also the sense in which the author uses the term as a reference to the class struggle, and the fact that scientists are generally in a lower class than capitalists, and so should, in theory, owe their allegiance to worker class rather than the capital class.
All of this nuance is implied in that statement. If you see class traitor and don't immediately think about arguments about the class struggle between capitalists and workers, then you are in effect infantilizing the term.
You can claim that a large part of the audience will naturally react that way to this term. However it may be the case that the author does not care if people who do not believe in the class struggle would tend to infantilize that term. Speaking to the audience that knows about the class struggle theory is sufficient and valid.
I agree and it's especially frustrating because it's such a vital topic. Since at least ~2020 the utility of Google Search has declined dramatically and it appears much of the cause is actions intentionally taken by Google prioritizing short-term ad revenue over long-term user value.
There was likely a significant change in cultural priorities inside Google driving this. While one person can certainly contribute to such a cultural change, it would be a better article if it focused on the change in cultural values itself.
Just to chime in, I started reading the article due to this comment, as I wanted to check the style of the writing, but the amount of in-your-face insistence to subscribe to yet another newsletter just put me off entirely.
There was a CTA right at the beginning (which appeared suddenly after 4-5 seconds of reading so I lost my place), then another one a few paragraphs later, then less than 3 seconds after that, a pop-up to subscribe!
At that point I was so annoyed I just scrolled to the end to see how many more of these distractions I would have to endure, and then I found _yet_ another one and ALSO a bottom bar?
What gives? Is this really useful anymore? do people that subscribe after being harassed like this actually care about your articles?
I try to ignore these as much as possible, but holy cow, I just want to read this one article and maybe later _if_ I find it interesting I might read a couple more and THEN actually subscribe.
I am really annoyed by the amount of distracting stuff these "blogs" put in front you as if they wanted you to avoid reading the material. What is wrong with these people?
Aside from the annoying pop-up, I didn't actually notice the other calls to subscribe.
It's a bit of an unfortunate situation for the author, if any reasonable number of people are like me. If I didn't notice the less-intrusive efforts to get me to subscribe, and when I see the intrusive one (the modal pop-up), it makes me less likely to want to subscribe... oof.
I think the theoretical ideal from the reader's standpoint is that there's just one call to subscribe, at the very end, the idea being that if you can't make it to the end of the article, you probably aren't going to subscribe anyway.
And yet so many sites still do the modal pop-up that interrupts you while you're reading. So clearly they must work, at least well enough to get people to sign up? Then again, I do wonder how many people are so turned off by those pop-ups, people who would have subscribed, but decide not to?
Not sure if it's my browser config, but I saw all these CTAs I mentioned, which I find absurd.
I really think the article was relatively interesting, enough for me to consider other articles if it weren't for the amount of annoying nudges I got, which is a shame because the author probably put some good effort into it.
I agree that the only CTA should be at the end, but more and more it looks like it actually works, otherwise I would imagine people would stop doing it so often.
That's the first question that came to mind while reading the article. Many of the possible answers that came to mind did nothing to improve my perception of the article.
I thought it was written very well, and was engaging. I could easily imagine it being dry and boring, otherwise, something that wouldn't hold my attention long enough to read through it to the end.
this is such a tiresome criticism. "this would be better if it were more boring" yeah okay and 4 people would read it and 2 of them would fall asleep during
And your criticism of him is what? Encourage more sensationalism? Because there's so much evidence of that being such good and healthy way for journalism/news to operate?
It may have been somewhat sensationalist and over the top. But it was also very authentic, and freaking hilarious. Much more entertaining to read than if it hadn't been snarky and catty.
So no don't go for pure sensationalism. Go for authentic voice and humor coupled with hard facts and sound arguments. That's what makes it powerful.
What is crappier: engaging text with colorful text that may offend people, or sterile text from an author afraid of offending a single person? I'm going with the latter.
Yes, I felt that the style of the writing lead me to doubt whether I was reading the full story (and indeed, the way Prabhakar's work at IBM is minimized reinforced that impression).
